Loretta of the Lamp

Stupid pranks in the dark

"What was that for?" Stan asked, annoyed as he reached to grab the lamp off the floor, but the lamp was hot. So hot he yelled even louder than Loretta when he touched it.

"Maybe it's booby-trapped?" Peter suggested, forcing Jess to stay behind him.

Stan sucked his fingers and swore. He was about to kick it, when smoke started to leak out of the spout.

"Some kind of acid?" Peter speculated, horrified as the pool of smoke grew stronger, accumulating into a cloud that billowed and grew up from the floor.

"Do you think it might be poisonous?" Jess covered her mouth and nose with her sleeve.

The lamp began to spin like a Catherine Wheel with the force of the smoke spouting from it.

"We should leave," Loretta suggested.

Peter nodded and grabbed Jess by the arm, leading her toward the door.

By the time they reached the door, the whole room was smothered in smoke, even darker than it had been when they entered.

Stan made it to the door first and placed his hand on the knob, but it too was scalding hot. He screeched again.

The shaft of light from Jess' phone now only shone a few inches ahead of them into the darkness, and Loretta could not even see her own hand in front of her face. The smoke was so thick it was almost solid, and breathing was not easy.

In the moments which followed Stan's scream, a voice came to them out of the smoke and darkness.

"Who wakes the lamp and runs away?"

Stan swore again, his panic escalating to a new level as he grabbed the door with his sleeve over his hand, but it wouldn't budge. Jess yelped in shock as Peter threw her back against the wall and placed his body over her. Stan threw his own body against the door and began to yell for help, smashing his fist against the glass portal to the empty corridor beyond.

Loretta would have been amused by his terrified screams, if not for the fact that she was just as terrified and stuck to the spot where she stood, a little in front of Peter, and farthest from the door.

The voice was soft and melodic, but strong with the threat that lay beneath the question.

Behind her Stan was coughing as he inhaled the smoke between his screams for help.

"Who wakes the lamp and runs away?" The voice asked again.

Jess reached an arm around Peter and grabbed tight on Loretta's jacket, afraid for her.

Stan stopped yelling as reason overtook him, "Who's there?" he asked, between his coughs. Peter put a hand out on his chest, cautioning him.

Stan brushed his hand away. "I said 'who's there?'" he demanded when no answer came.

"Yet you were not the first to ask it."

"But we are the last. There is no one else here but the four of us, and you," Loretta said to the darkness.

Jess pinched her, "Don't tell it we are alone!" she hissed, terrified.

"Clever girl. You ask no questions, yet you make two assumptions. One that in saying there are four of you is enough to answer my question, and tell me that you think I am outnumbered. And two, that you correctly assume there is only one of me."

"Then stop playing stupid pranks and come out of the dark," Loretta told the voice, angry because she assumed that this joke had something to do with Stan and his choice to bring them here.

"You already see me."

Loretta beat the smoke away from her face in frustration as she breathed through her sleeve. But the smoke was already moving, pulling away from them. Peter's torch light became visible again. It's beam followed the receding smoke back to where it gathered in the centre of the room.